Celebrations amid misery – Kunwar Idris
Celebrations amid misery – Kunwar Idris
COMPLETING just one year in a constitutional tenure of five hardly calls for a celebration. No one, however, should be objecting if President Asif Zardari’s ministers and courtiers thought otherwise.
The objection, and a serious one, is to the accompanying blaze of publicity at public expense.
To recount the achievements of the PPP government in one year, and holding out hopes for the next four, through a spate of glamorous advertisements at a time when life is hard and sad for the common man, as it never was before (the prime minister warns it will get harder), leaves one wondering whether the president’s publicists are not his enemies.
It is a moment to be humble with nose to the grindstone. A flare of propaganda and feasts is just not in tune with the times. It is outright jarring. The government can always blame the past for the hardships of the present but by its extravagant ways it is only rubbing salt into the wounds of the poor and unemployed.
Propaganda, the arbitrary use of authority and the abuse of discretion of the kind demonstrated in political patronage and promotions of civil servants is just one aspect of the anniversary celebrations. Not to be overlooked is a deeper significance. The message seemingly being conveyed is that the Charter of Democracy or other public avowals notwithstanding, the presidency is going to stay at the centre of state power so long as Mr Zardari is the president. It is hard to imagine him acting as a ceremonial head of state while he wears the mantle bequeathed by the charismatic Benazir Bhutto. He is also co-chairman of the party.
The only possibility one can see for the repeal of Article 58(2)(b) of the constitution is if Mr Zardari were to decide to become prime minister. Winning a by-election and then getting elected as leader of the house should be no problem for him. That is the option that one day he may choose to exercise. In that event, the curbs imposed on the executive authority of the prime minister by the 17th Amendment will also have to go.
That would give rise once again to the constitutional question which has been haunting the country from the very first day of its existence: should all executive authority vest in the prime minister and the president be a mere ceremonial head of state?
This is what most politicians want with Nawaz Sharif leading them. But it is hard to say whether the people at large and the apolitical intelligentsia also want it that way. Most among them seem to prefer the presidential form. In making this crucial decision the preference of not one or the other class or individual, but national cohesion, political stability and good governance should weigh. As we see all three are in steep decline. A quick peek into the past should help find a middle course.
Mr Jinnah was not merely a head of state. He was also father of the nation. Nevertheless, even in the first formative years rumours went round that Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan was wary of Jinnah’s awesome presence and authority (foreign minister Zafrulla Khan who was close to both in his memoirs, however, dispels that impression. Both worked in complete harmony, he writes).
Jinnah’s successor, Khawaja Nazimuddin, was held in esteem but was a ceremonial head of state. Liaquat Ali Khan was all powerful. And that is when the first rumblings of discontent were heard in East Pakistan. Later Ghulam Mohammad and Iskander Mirza dismissed prime ministers at will. Ayub Khan never had one.
After the separation of East Pakistan, Chaudhry Fazal Elahi as president cut a pathetic figure. Even a ceremonial role was denied to him. Z.A. Bhutto was virtually both the head of state and government. Ziaul Haq dismissed Prime Minister Junejo, Ghulam Ishaq Khan dismissed Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif and Farooq Leghari dismissed Benazir Bhutto once again.
The upshot of this is that when the president did not have the power to dissolve the National Assembly and remove the prime minister, even his advice was not heeded nor did he command much respect in society. The incumbents of the office chosen by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif — Fazal Elahi and Rafiq Tarar — had to be content with the financial benefits of the office alone. But when the president had that power he used it with gay abandon as did Ghulam Ishaq and Farooq Leghari in dismissing Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif.
The emerging lessons are: one, parliament (the National Assembly and Senate) through its committees must exercise a check on the executive authority of the prime minister. A parliamentary committee in Britain, for instance, would have surely asked many questions before ratifying the recent large and arbitrary promotions of civil servants. The public accounts committee over which leader of the opposition, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, presides has shown the way and set the pace.
Secondly, the right of the president to restrain and warn the prime minister and to be consulted in key appointments (chiefs of staff, judges, chief election commissioner, secretaries, heads of corporations, etc) should be recognised in the constitution. Yet another condition which cannot be constitutional but should always serve as a guideline for the president’s electoral college (Senate, National Assembly and provincial assemblies) is that the president elected should be a respected national figure as were Dr Radhakrishnan and Dr Abdul Kalam in India. Further, the president and the prime minister at any one time must not belong to the same province.
The quintessential lesson emerging from the rise and fall of governments over the past 62 years, however, is that the repository of political power should be parliament and not any one individual. A prime minister who is whimsical (as was Nawaz Sharif in selecting the president and later in steamrolling the Sharia bill through the National Assembly), or is overweening (as was Z.A. Bhutto) only invites martial law.
On the other hand, a powerful president is a negation of the parliamentary system to which our politicians are wedded not for its suitability but for their own importance. Only an assertive parliament and not a strong man, be it Asif Zardari or Nawaz Sharif, can keep the country on democratic rails and turn it around, something it desperately needs.
